


Shot Through The Heart

by Flowerparrish, Huntress79



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Radio, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Surprisingly Fluffy, Too much coffee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 02:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20107831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerparrish/pseuds/Flowerparrish, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huntress79/pseuds/Huntress79
Summary: When Clint shows up to his latest crime scene twelve minutes late with Starbucks, he doesn't expect it to be so life-changing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Endless thanks to candycanedarcy for the beta and cheerleading! Additional thanks to the mods of the Winterhawk RBB for running such a fun event! 
> 
> We hope you enjoy the fic!
> 
> [Link to the artpost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20109592)

[](https://images2.imgbox.com/9f/e2/6XoKN7ft_o.jpg)

*********************

[ ](https://images2.imgbox.com/9c/c9/hCsNSK3V_o.jpg)

Clint shows up to his latest crime scene twelve minutes late with Starbucks.

It’s not fifteen, so, you know, that’s okay, right? And it’s only Starbucks, not anything better, because he fell back asleep after the phone call from Captain Hill, only to jolt awake half an hour later. He was running decidedly too late to go out of his way, even for palatable coffee, when Starbucks remained—technically—an option.

So he’s here. Twelve minutes late with Starbucks.

“You have to stop bringing coffee to crime scenes,” Bruce says with a sigh when he notices Clint crossing the police barrier.

“I only spilled once!”

“You get that once is enough, right? Didn’t Hill suspend you for contaminating a crime scene?”

Clint frowns. “It was only, like, a couple of days though. And you’ve seen me without coffee, do you really want _that_ here instead?”

Bruce crosses his arms, not backing down—yet. In Clint’s experience, he will give up soon enough. “Why don’t you drink your coffee before you come in to work?”

“I was running late,” Clint defends. “I’ve been better, lately!”

Bruce rolls his eyes but nods reluctantly. “You have,” he agrees. “Just… don’t spill your coffee, Hawkeye.”

Clint grins at the nickname—his hearing may be fucked to hell, but he’s got a reputation on the squad for never missing even the smallest clues—and, because Bruce is kind of right, he downs the last of his coffee in a few large gulps and ducks back out of the police barricade to toss it in a nearby trash can. “Better?” he asks, a little snotty but with a genuine smile.

Bruce shakes his head, but Clint’s pretty sure it’s a fond gesture. “Yes, Clint, now go do your job.”

Clint salutes him lazily and then shifts into his detective headspace and lets all of the distractions around him—few as they are in the early hours of the morning—fade away.

“What have we got?” he asks one of the cops on the scene. He knows what Hill told him on the phone, not that it was much—homicide, 34-year-old male victim, speculated cause of death: head trauma.

What the man tells him is mostly just an affirmation of what Clint already knew or at least suspected, but he leads Clint inside the townhouse and up the stairs. They have to carefully avoid splatters of blood that seem to have dripped down _someone_ leaving, and when they reach the bedroom just off the top of the stairs, Clint can take in the full scene.

It’s always gross, this part of the job, no matter how detached he makes himself from it in the moment. There’s a reason he doesn’t eat on the mornings he gets called to a murder scene, after all, and even the coffee in his stomach is swirling angrily.

Clint doesn’t find much of any interest as he pokes through the house. This guy seems like he was, for all intents and purposes, a slightly messy but normal guy with an impressive collection of magazines and self-help books and not much else going on.

“What did you say the guy did?” he asks the same cop on his way out the front door.

“Morning radio host. His bosses called the cops when he didn’t show up and didn’t answer his phone. He’s pretty punctual, apparently.”

Clint nods. “Okay, thanks man.” He yanks off his gloves and offers the guy a handshake.

“You got it, detective,” the guy replies, shaking Clint’s hand and moving away, probably to work out who’s going to clean up the scene, and when.

Clint is very glad he’s moved past the days when that was his problem.

[ ](http://imgbox.com/wR1vEh3g)

Clint swings by his apartment on his way in to the office to collect Lucky, his police dog sidekick extraordinaire. He tries to leave him behind when possible for the crime scenes, ostensibly because he doesn’t want to accidentally contaminate them with a rogue paw print or some dog hair, but really because Lucky is too pure for that kind of violence.

It’s dumb. Whatever.

On their walk to the precinct, Clint stops for another coffee—because why not, right?—and the girl behind the counter coos over Lucky, who gives her a big, dopey smile but doesn’t solicit pets because he knows he is Working.

At the precinct, Clint bypasses the few people who are there early—and some of the night crew who have stayed late—and heads to Captain Hill’s office. He only knocks once before heading straight in, partly to see her roll her eyes and partly out of genuine impatience.

“How was the scene?” she asks, instead of bothering to gripe at him for behavior he’s not going to change.

“About what you’d expect.” She narrows her eyes at him; he rolls his. “When forensic gets back to us, we might know more,” he says. “I poked around, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I’m planning to go to his workplace next, ask some questions, see if anything stands out there.”

She hums and, after an additional moment, nods. “Okay. Keep me updated.”

He lazily salutes with the hand not holding Lucky’s leash and heads back out into the main office.

From his desk, he makes a phone call to the victim’s workplace and does some cursory research on the place so he’s got an idea of what to expect. Lucky snoozes on a dog bed next to him, while he takes notes, adding to the ones he took at the scene, trying to pull together enough clues to form a picture.

The victim—Hughes—was indeed a morning radio host at a local indie station, and he was popular enough that Clint had probably heard him before, if not listened religiously. He was a little bit opinionated on the liberal end of the spectrum—or liberal for today’s world, which meant he was pretty squarely moderate but didn’t tolerate fascists on his show. As an indie, he could get away with it, and he wasn’t universally liked—but he wasn’t particularly hated, either.

As it approaches one, he takes a break for lunch at a nearby café before heading out to conduct interviews at the radio station.

The radio station is in the heart of Brooklyn, and Clint takes the subway because it’s easier than driving at this hour anyway. He knows Captain Hill will have his ass for it later, but that’s a problem for Future Clint to deal with.

Present Clint stops for coffee on the way to the radio building, and then introduces himself to the kid at the front desk. “Hi, I’m Detective Clint Barton. I called earlier and spoke with the station managers about coming by to ask some questions?”

The kid—he can’t be older than twenty, jeez—nods. “I’ll call up and let them know you’re here.” He glances curiously at Lucky, who is sitting politely next to Clint, but doesn’t comment.

Clint takes a seat and sips at his coffee, happily burning his taste buds in exchange for immediate caffeination.

It only takes about ten minutes before Clint is called up to the managers’ office. He takes the elevator to a floor near the top and steps out, following the taped-up signs to the door with two nameplates: Margaret Carter and Sharon Carter.

He knocks, and a voice calls out, “Come in!” There’s a crisp British accent curling around the words—Margaret Carter, then, who Clint knows from his cursory research moved here from England in her late teens.

Clint enters the room and sees two frankly gorgeous women both seated behind one desk. There are two desks in the room, against adjacent walls, but the desk that faces the door Clint has just walked through is clearly the one from which business is conducted.

The room reminds Clint of Captain Hill’s office. Not in looks, per se, but in energy. He thinks that might worry him, if he wasn’t so used to working under Hill. Instead, he just takes it in and makes a decision to be on his best behavior.

Lucky seems to agree, in that he enters the room with the same ease as he enters the Captain’s office back at the precinct, ears perked forward happily.

“Hi, I’m Detective Clint Barton,” he says, inclining his head in a small nod at each woman. “This is my police dog, Lucky. I appreciate that you both made time to meet with me on such short notice.”

There’s an amused curl on Margaret’s lips for a moment, but she sobers an instant later. “Of course, Detective. I’m Peggy, and this is Sharon.”

“Hello,” Sharon greets.

“We were greatly distressed by the events of the morning. We would like to do anything we can to help—answer questions, provide access, whatever you need,” Peggy continues.

That’s… super helpful, actually. It’s not rare, necessarily - except, yeah, it kind of is. People—managers and bosses in particular—tend to not want anyone up in their business, especially cops. “I appreciate that. I’d like to ask you a few questions to start with?”

Peggy and Sharon both nod. “Of course.”

“Has anything stood out to you recently, in regards to tension in the workplace? Arguments, formal complaints, that sort of thing?”

Sharon tilts her head. “Well, there have been an increased number of death threats in the mail.”

Clint blinks. He can’t believe he’s just hearing this now. “Death threats?” He doesn’t mean for his tone to be so incredulous, but—what the fuck?

“A number of our hosts receive semi-regular threatening letters,” Peggy tells him. “Including, on occasion, death threats. We report what seems pertinent to the police, but, well.” She shrugs delicately. “Frankly, Robert was outspoken in his beliefs, and some people enjoy being contrary.”

Clint would argue that death threats are more than “being contrary,” but, well. He can almost, kind of, see her point? They are basically minor celebrities.

“Do you keep these letters?”

“Yes.” Sharon crosses to a filing cabinet and opens the second drawer, rifling around before coming back with a _thick_ folder. “There were the ones that were sent to Robert in the last four months.”

“I would like to go through them, if that’s alright?”

“Absolutely.” She passes the file over to Clint, who notes the heft of it before settling it on his lap.

“Is there anything else you can think of?”

They glance at each other before looking back to him. “Minor office drama, but most people got along with Robert. He could be headstrong, but he was a good man.”

Clint nods. “Alright.” He braces the file on his lap with one hand and digs in his pocket with the other, pulling out his wallet. Inside, he finds one of his business cards, a little bit worn but otherwise intact. “Here’s my card, in case you think of anything later. I’d like to read through these, maybe talk to some of the other staff who worked with Mr. Hughes?”

“Of course,” Sharon says. “I can take you to one of the staff rooms to read the file, if that’s acceptable? Unless you wanted to take them with you.”

“No, I’ll read them here,” Clint assures her. “I might need to take a couple if they seem suspicious, but that’s all.”

She nods and stands, moving around the desk. Clint gets to his feet and Lucky stands as well, ears still perked up in curiosity but otherwise being perfectly polite. Sharon smiles at him, and he gives her his dopey dog grin in return.

After saying goodbye to Peggy, Clint and Lucky follow Sharon to a staff room on another floor. It’s too early for dinner and late for lunch, so it’s mostly empty, the only person in the room just leaving with a steaming mug of coffee in their hands.

“Please, feel free to come get myself or Peggy if you need anything,” Sharon tells him. “And help yourself to the coffee, there’s spare clean mugs in the cabinets.”

“Thank you,” Clint tells her, meaning it about twice as sincerely now that he’s been welcomed to the coffee. But, well, he’s been busy today—he’s only had three cups and he’s been up for almost twelve hours! “I’ll take you up on that.”

She leaves him poking through the cupboards, Lucky settled down on the floor by the rickety chair at a circular table Clint has claimed. He finds a purple mug with arrows on it that he instantly falls in love with and briefly contemplates stealing, before reminding himself that he’s a policeman and, more importantly, Hill would have his _ass_ if he did something stupid like that.

The coffee is mediocre, but it’s also _coffee_. Clint doesn’t have high standards on most things, and with coffee, his standards are pretty much: is it coffee? If yes, it’s good enough. He has preferences, sure, but _standards_? Nah.

While he’s sitting down, Clint only spills coffee on a little bit of the folder—just the corner—and it doesn’t get on any of the notes inside, so it’s like. Probably fine?

He sets the mug down far away from the folder and pretends that’s safe enough, and then he gets to work.

Half of the notes are actually pretty boring. Some are more along the lines of “someone ought to teach you a lesson (by killing you)” than outright death threats, which, c’mon. If you’re going to go through all of the effort to write death threats _in a letter_, you should at least commit to it.

Maybe that’s a bad opinion. Oh well, it’s not like he’s going to share it with anyone.

Only a couple stand out. The one Clint’s really stuck on is because it’s as creepy as it is cliché, words pieced together entirely from clippings of letters, words, and entire phrases from newspapers and magazines.

People watch too many crime dramas and serial killer documentaries these days, and this is clearly evidence of that, but it’s also… unsettling, in a way. Clint can’t quite put his finger on why.

Maybe it’s the effort that went into it. If they didn’t want their handwriting to be noticed, they could have just typed up the letter and printed it—that’s what most people did, after all. But no; instead, they went to all of this effort… for what? The psychological impact?

Clint carefully sets it aside, glad that he’s wearing gloves so that they can dust it for prints—there’s probably prints from Peggy or Sharon and whoever opened the letter, but maybe there’s prints from the sender as well.

A couple others feature some more detailed threats—anywhere from _I’m going to shoot you in the back of the head and you’ll never see it coming_ (unlikely) to _I’m going to strangle you with your intestines_ (points for creativity, if not for follow through)—and he sets those aside as well. The rest he places back in their folder, and after rinsing his coffee mug and leaving it in the sink, he and Lucky head back up to the managers’ office.

He knocks, waits a beat, and enters when he hears Peggy’s crisp voice summon him in.

“Hi,” he says. They’re each behind their own desks now, and Clint finds himself unsure of where to look. In the end, he turns to Sharon and walks closer to her desk in order to pass her the file. “I looked through this and found a couple that I would like to follow up on.”

She nods. “Of course. Is there anything else we can help you with?”

“I would still like to talk to the people who worked most directly with Mr. Hughes, but I presume they won’t be in again until tomorrow morning?”

“That’s correct. I could try to summon them back in earlier if necessary, but coming in the early morning would be your best bet.”

It’s early evening now, and Clint has a feeling he’d have to return very early in the morning to catch them all before their show. They might have time after, of course, but no one ever wants to stay late after work. “Could you ask them to come in a little bit early in the morning? Just so they have time to talk with me without rushing to prepare everything else they need to do.”

“Of course.” Sharon begins typing at her laptop, and Clint waits awkwardly. After a minute and a half, she looks back to him. “Email sent. Is there anything else we can help you with tonight?”

“I just wanted to know if anyone else had been sent letters like this?” Clint asks, showing her the creepy cut-and-paste death threat he’s fixated on.

“Oh!” She crosses to the cabinet once more, digging through, and comes up with a file. This one reads DEATH THREATS – James Barnes. “Yes, actually, one just came in this morning.”

Clint would find that odd, a letter appearing the same days as the murder, but it would have to have been sent out yesterday at some point to arrive this morning—well before the murder occurred.

That acknowledged, it’s a coincidence, and Clint likes to keep track of coincidences. They often pile up into clues, in his experience.

The file he’s handed is less hefty than Hughes’, but not by much. “What does Barnes host?”

Peggy snorts, apparently amused by something, but Sharon answers, “A late night dating and relationship advice show.”

“Huh.” Clint skims the first few letters in the file, and yep, it seems like they’re guys—and a couple gals—who’ve been dumped because of Barnes’ advice and are pissed about it. Then, about six in, he gets to what he was looking for: a letter like the one to Hughes. He pulls it out and studies it; on the surface, it sure seems like it might have been sent by the same person. “Mind if I take this one as well?”

“No problem,” Sharon replies. “Detective, I have to ask; do you think any of our staff is in danger?”

“At the present moment, there’s no evidence to heavily suggest Mr. Hughes was targeted because of his job,” Clint says carefully. “Even if Mr. Hughes was targeted because of something to do with his work, there’s nothing I’ve found yet that suggests anyone else might be in danger. But the death threats are the most prominent current leads for me to investigate, and I would be remiss if I promised you that everyone was safe.”

“Is there any action we can take?” Peggy asks.

“Remind everyone to be cautious, especially people who commute during late night and early morning hours. If anyone is particularly concerned, they might want to stay with family or friends for a few nights until we can confirm whether or not Mr. Hughes was targeted because of his work, but that shouldn’t be necessary.”

“Is Barnes in danger?” Sharon asks, looking pointedly at the file that Clint is still holding.

“Probably not,” Clint reassures her. “I’m just chasing a hunch.”

“Hm,” Peggy says, but offers nothing more. “Well, let us know if we can help in any other way. We’ll see you tomorrow morning? Around 4 am?”

Clint holds in a groan, but he’s pretty sure he does grimace. That’s just so early, two mornings in a row, and he’s still got to go back to the station tonight. Ugh, he’s barely going to get any sleep. “Absolutely. Thank you again.”

He passes back the Barnes file and leads Lucky out the door, down to the lobby, and out into the evening sunset.

[ ](http://imgbox.com/wR1vEh3g)

In spite of the late evening hour, Hill is still at the office when Clint gets there. He knocks on the door and enters, waiting while she pointedly finishes reading the paper in front of her before she turns her attention to him.

“How did it go?”

Clint shrugs. “A few leads. Nothing tangible. I have some letters to get fingerprinted, see if they turn anything up.”

“Letters?”

He grins. “Death threats.”

She rolls her eyes. “Of course.” She sounds long-suffering, but then, she knows exactly how cool Clint thinks this is.

The creepy letters, not the actual dead person. That part is very much Not Cool At All.

“Has forensics come back with anything yet?”

“You’ll have to check. What are your next moves?”

“Interviewing the coworkers tomorrow. Maybe take Lucky back by the scene now that it’s been cleaned up some, see if he can sniff anything out.”

She nods. “Well, get to it. And get some sleep tonight. I want you sharp.”

“10-4,” he replies, mostly just to be a brat. He slouches back out of her office and into his chair at his desk. Lucky’s settled down on his dog bed next to it, didn’t even bother following him to Hill’s office because he’s so done from the day. “I know, bud,” Clint tells him. “We’ll be home soon.” _Hopefully_, he tacks on at the end of the thought.

He runs the letters to forensics so they can do pull prints and find out whatever else they can, and he checks, but there’s not much in on the crime scene yet. Luckily, he’s out by eight thirty, which means he just _might_ be asleep by nine thirty or ten.

Five hours of sleep.

Yeah, he’s going to _hate_ waking up in the morning.

[ ](http://imgbox.com/wR1vEh3g)

He wakes up and stumbles into the kitchen for coffee, only to come to the unfortunate realization that he, in all his exhaustion the night before, forgot to set the timer, and there’s no coffee waiting for him in the pot.

_Fuck._

He starts the pot and stumbles through getting showered and dressed without the blissful aid of caffeination, Lucky still snoozing in bed, unwilling to get up until he has to. Clint can relate.

It’s 3 am, and he’s just pouring his first cup of coffee when his phone goes off. He’s got his hearing aids in, so the loud _bzzt_ of it on the counter startles him into spilling a splash of hot coffee on his hand. He curses and sticks it under the faucet on cold, using his other hand to snatch up the phone and swipe the call button. “What?” he bites out.

“Death threat, a letter, was found on the windshield of a car belonging to one of the host’s at the station.”

“Which one? When?”

“Guy called…” there’s a pause, as Hill clearly takes a second to glance at her notes, “Barnes. Late night host. Was getting off work and found it. Went back in, told the manager, and they called us.”

Clint yanks his other hand out from under the stream of cool water and turns off the faucet. “Did you send a patrol?”

She is pointedly silent, by which she means to communicate: _yes, you dumbass, I sent a patrol._

“Cut me some slack, I haven’t had my coffee yet,” he grumbles. “Fuck, okay, tell them I’m on my way. If Barnes is still there, I’d like to talk to him.”

“10-4,” she says back, just to be snotty.

Clint adores her.


	2. Chapter 2

[](https://images2.imgbox.com/80/55/OCImMrZK_o.jpg)  


*********************

Bucky is having possibly the worst twenty-four hours of his life. It’s kind of a toss-up, because it’s not like his life has been all sunshine and roses, but this? This is… pretty fucked up, really.

It all started when his phone woke him up at eight am—so, _way_ too early, because he works until three am and likes to sleep until at least eleven—and he was grumpy about it until he checked the texts that had woken him.

It was a group chat of all of the hosts at work, not used very frequently, but suddenly inundated with forty-three new messages and counting.

The root of it? His coworker, Robert Hughes, a morning host, had been _found dead_ a few hours ago after he didn’t show up to work.

Bucky doesn’t know a _lot_ about cops, but he does know they can’t enter a house without permission or a warrant—or probable cause. Hughes not showing up to work? Not enough probable cause.

God, there must have been, like, a _blood trail_ or something.

So that’s a perfectly morbid start to his morning.

He gives up on going back to sleep; he doesn’t even want to know the kind of nightmares he’d have if he tried.

So it’s not a good day, but he does his best to salvage it. He mutes the group chat, and he goes out to lunch with his sister, Becca, and it’s a nice day out, so he even takes a book to the park and reads for a while.

But eventually, he can no longer put it off. He heads in to work, choosing to drive even during the tail end of rush hour because he thinks he might get paranoid trying to walk home at 3 am.

Work is rough. Hughes’ murder is all anyone wants to talk about, despite the fact that they know next to nothing except that he’s been killed. Apparently there was a cop in the building talking with Pegs and Sharon earlier, and he’d gone through some files and left with some papers. The rumor mill is abuzz with gossip.

Bucky keeps his head down, does his best to ignore it, picks which emails he wants to answer with questions for the show so he has something to do in case there aren’t many calls in, and he’s almost in his DJ headspace when Steve knocks on the doorframe and enters.

“Steve?” Bucky asks, confused. Steve’s not around all that often, really, considering that his wife and his best friend work here. “What’s up?”

“I was dropping off dinner for Peg and she sent me down to grab you.”

Bucky glances at the clock, but he’s got a half hour before he goes on air, so he shrugs. “Okay, I’ll be right up. We still on for lunch tomorrow?”

“You bet.” Steve’s grin is blinding, if a little tired. “Good luck with the show, Buck.”

Bucky waves him away, finishes up his last thought, and heads up to Peggy’s office. He knocks and enters when she calls out, kind of surprised she’s still here even though Steve’s gone home—more often than not, if he comes to collect her, she leaves with him.

“What’s up, Peg?”

“Hello, James,” she greets him with a wan smile. She looks exhausted.

“How are you holding up?” he asks.

“Fine,” she says, and raises an eyebrow in a silent dare for him to call her on her bluff.

He’s a smart man, too smart to do something as foolish as that. “I saw Steve,” he comments instead, because he knows how she prefers not to blend her private and work life when possible, something about keeping everything in its place. He’s honestly shocked she hired him at all, knowing he was Steve’s best friend, back when she and Steve were only dating and he was fresh back from the war. Way back when he was just a sound tech, before he ever pitched his own show.

She doesn’t rise to his bait. “I need to speak with you. Close the door, will you?”

“Ominous,” he comments, but she doesn’t even crack a faint grin. Oof. “C’mon, Peg, it’s not like you’re firing me, how dire can it be?” When she still doesn’t smile, he says, “Wait, you’re _not_ firing me, right?”

“No, of course not. I wouldn’t send Steve to collect you if I was firing you.”

Good point. “Well, okay then. What is it?”

She sighs. “You’ve heard that we had a detective here today, investigating Robert’s case?”

“Yeah?”

“He found some death threats he wanted to follow up on. One of them matched one of yours. One from just this morning.”

Bucky winces. “Okay, so, what does that mean?”

She fidgets her with wedding ring, spinning it around her finger, a tell she rarely shows—one he doesn’t think she’d allow herself to show, if it was anyone else here with her. “He said it should be fine. That you could stay with friends or family for safety if you’re worried, and they’ll follow up, but that it’s probably nothing serious.”

“No thanks,” he says, because he knows from some _conversations_ that they’re trying for a baby, and he’d rather not get in the way (or be in the same house). “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Alright, James,” she says, because she’s always taken him at face value, even when he was a twitchy mess of PTSD and half a personality. “Please let me know if that changes, or if there’s anything I can do to make you feel comfortable.”

He gives her a soft smile, one that he normally reserves for Steve at his most obstinate, and says, “Of course, Peg.”

[ ](http://imgbox.com/wR1vEh3g)

The show goes fine. There’s an average amount of callers for a weeknight; they taper off as it gets later, and Bucky plays more rock and alternative and pop, all songs about love, whether they’re actual love songs or breakup songs or songs about being in the friendzone.

When he finishes up at 2 am, he gets everything together, finishes logging all of the songs he’s played and doing the rest of the paperwork, and by 2:30 am, he’s stopping by the managers’ office to make sure Peggy’s really gone home for the night.

It’s Sharon in there, which is a relief. “Hey Bucky,” she greets quietly, tiredly, conscious of the early hour. “You out for the night?”

He nods. “Just checking in. Is there anything you need?”

Her smile is warm when she shakes her head. “No. Go home. Rest up. Be safe.” It’s the same thing she always says, so she can’t be too extra worried about the death threats.

Huh. He’d almost forgotten about those, honestly, in the hours it took to run and manage his show. “Gearing up for the weekend,” he says, “so I’d better not rest too much.”

She rolls her eyes. “You work too hard. And when it’s your boss telling you that, you know it’s true.”

He doesn’t blush, because he’s long since trained that response out of himself. He doesn’t squirm for the same reason. He _does_ shrug and refuse to rise to the bait. “See you tomorrow, Sharon.”

“Bye,” she says, turning back to the papers in front of her.

Bucky leaves the building, passing by the front desk, staffed by a college student who knows their sleep schedule is fucked, is past caring, and wants nothing more than to earn a few dollars to make up for it, and heads out to the lot where his car is parked.

He gets that late-night paranoid feeling, that prickling one that says he’s being watched, and he’s torn between glancing over his shoulder every two steps and just ignoring it entirely. He eventually settles for the latter, because at this point, all the caffeine that’s been sustaining him all day is wearing off, and he’s tired down to his bones.

He gets to his car, and there’s something on the windshield. He looks closer, wondering how he managed to get a ticket when he hasn’t done anything wrong, and sees that it’s an envelope.

An envelope with his name on it. Not his given name—not James Barnes—but “Bucky.”

This… can’t be real. This isn’t happening.

He shouldn’t open it. He knows that, even if he’s a tiny bit floaty in the head right now and not sure _why_. But all he can think about is going back inside with a story about an envelope tucked under his windshield wipers that he didn’t open, and it sounds dumb.

So he snags the envelope, lifts the flap, and pulls out the paper inside.

He reads it. Resists the urge to crumple it up. Turns on his heel. And heads back to the building.

[ ](http://imgbox.com/wR1vEh3g)

At least Sharon makes him coffee. She even uses her secret stash, so it’s good coffee, not the usual swill that lives in the employee lounge.

[ ](http://imgbox.com/wR1vEh3g)

Bucky’s downed two cups of coffee, given his statement to the cops, and is feeling somewhat awake—or, being more honest, less ready to just lay down on the floor and die—when Sharon leads in a man and a dog.

The man is… attractive. Bucky assesses his brain to mouth filter, and yep, it’s intact. _Thank you coffee_, he thinks to himself, _you were good for something after all._

“James, this is Detective Barton,” Sharon says, as the man takes a seat across from Bucky at the round table. The dog settles in at his feet and promptly goes to sleep. “He wants to go over your statement and ask a few questions.” Her eyes ask, _do you want me to stay?_

“Sure,” Bucky says, tired but agreeable. “What can I do for you, Detective?”

Sharon takes his easy acquiescence as evidence that he doesn’t need her to stick around, and she leaves. He’s a little reassured by that; if she thought the Detective was going to give him any trouble, she would have stuck around. If she thinks Bucky can handle himself, then he’s probably fine, tired or not.

“I read through your statement and—” A large yawn cuts him off, and he winces. “Sorry. Mind if I finish the rest of that off?” He nods at the coffee pot, which has enough for _maybe_ another cup.

Bucky had kind of wanted to keep it for himself, but he figures it’s a small sacrifice for apparently dragging Barton out of bed at this hour. “Go for it.”

His brain to mouth filter may be active, but his brain’s clearly not at a hundred percent, because he catches himself checking out the hot cop’s ass as Barton heads over to the coffee pot.

He yanks his eyes away.

It’s a nice ass, though. Not nice enough for ogling it to make up for this entire day of hell, but, you know. It sure doesn’t hurt.

When Barton settles in across from him, he downs half the coffee in one long swallow, sets it down on the table, and gives Bucky a small smile that tugs up one end of his mouth more than the other. “Okay, starting again,” he says, a little self-deprecating, but also a little confident. It’s a curious combo. “So, James—may I call you James?”

Bucky winces. “Nah, only Peggy and my ma call me James. Bucky’s fine, though.”

Barton tilts his head the tiniest amount—Bucky probably wouldn’t even notice if he wasn’t paying such close attention to him—but otherwise doesn’t betray his curiosity. “Bucky, then,” he agrees easily, and he glances down at the file in front of him, making a note. “Did either Peggy or Sharon talk to you about the death threat that was delivered to the station for you yesterday?”

Bucky nods. “Peg stayed late to talk to me. She said you had found one like it in Robert’s stuff, but that it didn’t necessarily come from the murderer. Just a lead you were following.”

Barton nods. “Okay, so when you saw the note on your car—what went through your head?”

“Mostly just _why me_,” Bucky admits. “I was tired. I just wanted to go home and sleep. And then…” He waves a hand around. “All this, instead.”

“Okay,” Barton agrees. “So why did you open it?”

Bucky shrugs. “Honestly? I was scared it would be something else, and I’d have called the police in for nothing.”

Barton looks heavenward for a moment. Well, that, or he’s just suddenly _very_ interested in the ceiling. “Next time, call us first,” Barton advises, when he drags his eyes back down to Bucky. “There could have been something dangerous inside the envelope.”

It’s not a bad point. “Hopefully there won’t be a next time, though,” Bucky can’t help but snark in response.

Barton huffs a laugh. “No, hopefully not,” he agrees. “But to be on the safe side, blanket rule: be careful.”

“I’ll do my best,” is all Bucky will promise.

Barton spends the next half hour asking him questions—about his work, about his relationship with Robert, about his personal life. The answers are easy: work is good, and Bucky gets along with all of his coworkers; he barely knew Robert, aside from a handful of company parties and the few times they bumped into each other when Bucky was leaving exceptionally late and Robert was in exceptionally early, but he was a nice enough guy and they had gotten along fine; personal life… well.

He has a personal life, if barely. He goes out with Steve, or over to Steve and Peggy’s, a couple of times a week. Every other week he meets up with his sister. He texts some friends from work occasionally—less often than not if he’s honest, but he doesn’t share that, because it’s kind of pathetic—and he’s on a one-man mission to try every iced latte in Brooklyn until he finds the best one.

None of that explains why anyone would want to kill him, though.

“It’s gotta be something to do with the station, right?” Bucky asks Barton, when the man seems to have run out of questions for the moment. “Robert and I didn’t have anything else in common.”

“Seems likely,” Barton agrees.

Bucky opens his mouth to reply—to say what, he’s honestly not sure at this point—but instead, he lets out a jaw-cracking yawn.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” Barton says. “I’m going to give you a police detail. They will give you a ride home. They will watch your house. Unless you want to stay with someone?”

He could take Peggy up on her offer, but the thought of bringing any of this near Peggy and Steve only makes Bucky more anxious. “No, home is fine,” he says. “Thank you.”

Barton grins, and, oh, he has dimples? _Fuck._ “It is literally my job,” he points out, voice warm and amused. But then he adds, “You’re welcome, Bucky.”

[ ](http://imgbox.com/wR1vEh3g)

When Bucky crashes into bed almost an hour later, trying to take comfort in the police guarding his apartment, he thinks of Barton, that strange mix of snark and sincerity. The last thought in Bucky’s head before he falls asleep is of mischief sparkling in Barton’s blue eyes. 


	3. Chapter 3

[ ](https://images2.imgbox.com/ca/57/4HoIg6gj_o.jpg)

*********************

By the time Clint’s done talking with Bucky Barnes, it’s well past the time he was supposed to show up at the station anyway, so he has Sharon introduce him to each person who worked with Roberts and sets about interviewing them.

They all say pretty much the same thing. Hughes was a nice guy. He had strong opinions, but he didn’t try to shove them down your throat unless you tried to shove yours down his throat first. No one really had a problem with him, but if they went to him with a problem, he did his best to fix it. If he was ever in the wrong, he’d apologize, and then he’d change his behavior.

The picture they all paint is of a guy who was as close to perfect as could be; flawed, but genuinely a good guy who did his best to make the world a better place.

Either this guy’s got some kind of horrible secret, or…? Good people absolutely get killed for no reason, but it does make Clint’s job harder when he can’t find a motive.

Clint can’t wait until the tech guys get into Hughes laptop. Maybe _they’ll_ have more luck than he’s having.

Clint contemplates heading back to his apartment for a nap before he tries to tackle the day. Lucky, living up to his name, has been asleep at Clint’s feet all morning, so he’s fine, but Clint’s feeling a little run down, a little bit slow.

He heads in to the office anyway, to update Hill. He’d called her to make sure he could get a police presence assigned to Barnes’ apartment, but he likes to touch base.

She eyes him when he trips into his office, not really tripping on anything, just air and his own tiredness, and rolls her eyes. “Go take a nap,” she orders.

“Home is far,” he whines.

“There’s a couch in the lounge,” she points out unsympathetically. She should know; she’s slept on it more nights than one.

“But—”

She eyes him. “Home, or couch.”

He huffs a sigh. “Let me take care of like _two things_.”

“You have fifteen minutes. If I come out and you’re working, there will be _consequences_.”

She wouldn’t take him off the case or anything like that.

Worse.

She’d tell Natasha.

“Got it,” Clint agrees, because he’s not stupid enough to risk Natasha’s ire if Hill tells her. “Fifteen minutes.”

Clint fails spectacularly at only taking fifteen minutes. In his defense, some of the results from forensics are back—most will take a couple of days, but some tests can be done faster. He’s pouring over those when Hill turns up to glower menacingly at him. “Five more minutes?” he tries.

“Now.”

With a sigh, he closes out his computer and goes, Lucky at his heels. He heads home, because like hell is he sleeping on the terrible lumpy couch.

He stops for coffee on the walk, because at this point it’s not even going to keep him awake, maybe just cull his headache a little. He’s stumbling by the time he reaches his apartment, fumbling the key a couple of times before he manages to get it in the lock, and bed seems so far away.

He pours some food in Lucky’s bowl, tops off his water, and more or less falls onto his couch, taking out his hearing aids and dropping them on the side table. Bed is, in fact, too far.

At least his couch is _comfortable_.

He’s asleep before he can decide whether or not this is pathetic.

[ ](http://imgbox.com/wR1vEh3g)

Clint wakes up to the vibration of his phone in his pocket, insistent and unrelenting. He’s getting real sick of being woken up by his phone.

When he pulls it out, though, he sees that it’s Hill calling, which means either he slept through an entire day—fucking unlikely, although not impossible—or something less than ideal has gone down.

He has a quick moment to feel ice settle in his chest, because he really hopes the cute late-night radio host—Bucky, his brain supplies—isn’t dead. That would really suck.

He swipes the call button but says, “Hang on, I can’t hear you yet,” and sets the phone aside to put his aids in. “Okay, talk to me,” he says, picking the phone back up.

“Someone broke in to Barnes’ apartment. He’s alive, but shaken. They ran when they heard him coming, so he didn’t get a good look.”

“Fuck. Okay. Text me the address. I’ll be there…” Clint’s stomach growls, reminding him that it’s been approximately forever since he’s eaten. “Soon,” he says, accepting that that’s the best he can do.

Three bowls of cereal (eaten dry, because he discovers that his milk is expired, because of course it is) later, he’s snapping on Lucky’s leash and darting out the door.

He’s somewhat dressed down today, because fuck everyone (except Bucky Barnes, and _maybe_ Natasha and Captain Hill), that’s why. He was wearing jeans and a Jurassic Park t-shirt under a vest—it _mostly_ covered the raptors—and that was just going to have to be good enough.

It takes him twenty minutes to walk to Barnes’ place—not so far of a walk that it would have made more sense to go to the station first and get the car, but also not close enough that it’s easy. Lucky, at least, is glad for the exercise.

He lets Lucky sniff around outside the apartment building, hoping he’ll pick up on anything suspicious, but it’s a no-go. “C’mon, boy,” he encourages, and Lucky follows him obediently into the building.

Barnes’ door is on the second floor; Clint bypasses the rickety-looking elevator in favor of the stairs, because he doesn’t want to die today, thank you very much.

He hears raised voices before he even makes it to Barnes’ apartment. None of the voices, he notes, are Barnes’. In fact, only one of the voices is raised; the other is just firm and a little bit leery.

“I don’t know why you think we’d listen to you, when you couldn’t even keep him safe!” a man is shouting. There isn’t a more generous way to put it; he’s just… shouting.

“Sir,” another man says, and oh, that’s one of the cops from his precinct, a rookie who’s only been there a few weeks.

Clint knocks, cutting them off, and pushes the door open. Barnes is leaning against a wall, arms crossed, looking into a room. The room is, Clint guesses, where the unknown man is standing off. “Mr. Barnes,” Clint greets.

Barnes looks amused. “Thought I told you to call me Bucky,” he says, the edges of his lips quirking up.

It’s almost like he’s… flirting? But no, that’s… surely he wouldn’t be flirting after a potential murderer broke into his apartment?

And with _Clint_? Clint can admit the guy’s smoking—should be on TV, really, people deserve to _see_ that face, and his body sure as hell doesn’t disappoint—and there’s no way he’d be flirting with _Clint_.

It’s way more likely that flirting is his coping mechanism. Clint can’t fault him that; his is inappropriate jokes, so. They’ve got something more or less in common.

“Bucky,” he agrees, keeping the strain out of his voice. He’s a disaster, yes, but he loves his job too much to flirt back.

A beefy blond man appears in the doorway of the room Bucky’s staring into, and he’s glaring at Clint. “Just who the hell are you?”

Bucky looks amused, and altogether disinclined to help Clint out, so Clint draws himself up until he’s standing at his full—impressive—height and says, “I’m Detective Clint Barton, I’m the lead investigating this case.”

“So _you’re_ the one who—” the man starts, voice acidic.

“Steve,” Bucky says, cutting him off. “Detective Barton has been plenty helpful. I’m the one who said I didn’t want to stay anywhere except here. It’s not his fault that this happened.”

Steve looks like the vein in his temple is going to explode.

Bucky remains unphased.

“Look, I’m going to talk to the detective, okay, Steve? I’ll come find you at that coffee shop two blocks down when we’re done.”

Steve glares at him, but Bucky doesn’t budge an inch. After a solid half a minute or more, some of the tension leaves Steve’s frame. “Fine,” he agrees, but he sure doesn’t sound happy about it.

Still, he stalks past Clint and out the door. Clint half expects him to bump their shoulders in his rage or something, but he doesn’t, carefully sliding past Clint instead.

A nice guy, then, just concerned about his friend. Clint can get behind that.

“I’m gonna… go back out front,” says the rookie, looking uncomfortable. Aw, he’ll have to get much better at being yelled at—but, Clint supposes, it _is_ a learned talent.

Clint waves him off and looks at Bucky. “So, want to tell me what happened?”

What happened, apparently, is that Bucky chased the intruder out with a wooden baseball bat.

That’s…

“Where did you even get the bat?” Clint blurts out.

Bucky looks amused. “I play baseball sometimes, on the weekends. Figured I’d keep it handy, just in case.”

Clint nods. He’s not picturing Bucky in a baseball uniform, because that’s unprofessional.

Even if the twinkle in Bucky’s eyes says maybe he’d welcome it.

Nope. Not going there.

“Okay, did you get a good look at the intruder?”

Bucky winces. “Not really? They were wearing one of those dumb masks to cover this face.”

“Where did you confront them?”

“I woke up to the sound of the door—I’m a light sleeper. I grabbed the bat and confronted them in the front hall.”

“Were they armed?”

Bucky shrugs. “Maybe? I didn’t see a gun.”

Clint nods. “Okay. Did they get a chance to touch anything? Do you remember if they were wearing gloves?”

“Gloves,” Bucky confirms, and Clint holds in a groan. Of course.

“Okay. We can put you in a safe house, if that’s what you want. Your apartment is hard to guard, because there’s people going in and out at all hours—if they look relatively normal and don’t have trouble getting in, we might not know to be suspicious, as you’ve seen.”

“No,” Bucky says immediately. “I don’t want to stay somewhere that isn’t here.”

Clint internally groans. Waits a beat. And then asks, “Why?” and hopes it doesn’t come out sounding judgmental.

Bucky shifts, clearly uncomfortable. “I have PTSD. Have trouble waking up places that aren’t home. My brain doesn’t care that home may not be the safest place; I’ll be way more paranoid anywhere else.”

“Okay, can I leave someone inside with you, then? I’d leave them stationed outside your door, but that would probably get more questions.”

Bucky looks thoughtful. “On one condition.”

Clint almost rolls his eyes, because, _really_? “What’s that?”

“Can it be you? Nothing against the other guy, but… well, I’d feel safer if it was you.”

Clint thinks about it. “I have Lucky,” he points out.

“I love dogs,” Bucky says with a quick grin. “I’d be all over him if he wasn’t hard at work.”

Clint looks down at where Lucky’s sprawled on the floor at their feet and snorts. “Yeah, real hard at work,” he agrees, sarcasm heavy in his voice.

The thing is, if he stays with Bucky, it will eat into time that needs to be spent actually investigating the case. That said, there aren’t a whole lot of leads, and it does seem like maybe next to Bucky is where he should be. “Yeah, okay,” Clint agrees eventually. “Let me clear it with my boss, but it _should_ be fine.”

Bucky grins, something like relief flickering across his face. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

Clint shrugs; he never knows what to do with gratitude. “Will you be okay if I head to the precinct for a bit?”

Bucky nods. “Yeah, I’ll go spend the day with Steve.”

“Sounds good,” Clint agrees. “I’ll walk you to the coffee shop.”

Bucky narrows his eyes at him. “Are you my bodyguard now?”

Clint snorts. “This isn’t for you, man. I need coffee the way most people need air.”

“Oh.” Bucky’s expression smooths back out. “Well, it is good coffee.”

“You do not even know how little I care,” Clint tells him, rising to his feet and jiggling Lucky’s leash to get his attention. Lucky stands and does a long stretch. “All coffee is good coffee.”

“You’re wrong,” Bucky tells him. “_Most_ coffee is good coffee. Chain coffee is bad coffee. Work lounge coffee is bad coffee.”

Clint shrugs, shoulder bumping Bucky’s with the movement as they enter the hall. “Never met a pot of coffee I couldn’t handle.”

Bucky tosses him a considering look over his shoulder as he turns to lock the door behind him. “Hm,” is all he says.

Clint doesn’t know what to make of that, of the somewhat intense look in Bucky’s eyes as he drags his gaze over Clint, so he doesn’t say anything.

Their walk to the coffee shop is quiet, but peaceful.

When they walk through the door, Steve bolts up out of his seat, abandoning his coffee and croissant to cross the room to them in a few long strides.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Chill.”

Steve glares at him. “Someone breaks into your apartment, possibly to murder you, and you want me to chill? You need to un-chill.”

Bucky shrugs. “Eh, people have tried to kill me before, and it hasn’t happened yet.” Clint tilts his head, curious, but unsure if he should even ask. “Army,” Bucky elaborates.

Ah. Explains the PTSD, then. “Gotcha,” Clint agrees. “Well, I’m gonna order coffee, leave you two to talk.”

“Nah, I need coffee too,” Bucky says. “Go sit down, Stevie. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Steve looks kind of like a kicked puppy, but he does as Bucky says with minimal grumbling. “He’s such a punk,” Bucky tells Clint.

“I mean, you’ve gotta admit, he’s kinda got good reason to be worried about you.”

Bucky shrugs. “Yeah, but don’t let him know that, then he’ll be even more insufferable.”

Clint shakes his head. “Whatever you say.”

The line moves quickly, not too long at this time of day, and when Bucky gets to the front, he orders a complicated latte monstrosity before turning to Clint. “What do you want?”

“Uh,” Clint says, brain momentarily rebooting. “Cold brew?”

“Sure,” says the chipper girl behind the counter. “Cream? Sugar?”

“Sugar,” Clint agrees.

Bucky hands over fifteen dollars, tucks the change into the tip jar, and moves off to the side to wait for his coffee.

“You just… bought me coffee,” Clint says, brain finally switching back online.

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees.

“Uh. Why?”

Bucky shrugs. “You’re trying to keep me alive. Seemed like a thing to do.”

“It’s… my job?”

Bucky shrugs. “Doesn’t mean I can’t be grateful. Accept the coffee. Thank me if you must. It’s not a big deal.”

Clint knows it’s not a big deal. He’s not sure why his brain has decided it’s a big deal.

Except, like, it’s been approximately a million years (okay, like six months) since he got laid, and three times that since he last attempted a relationship.

A cute guy buying him coffee? He doesn’t know how to handle that kind of thing anymore.

“Thank you,” he says, after a silence that feels awkward, at least on his end.

“Keep me alive, and maybe I’ll buy you a coffee again when this is all over,” Bucky says, and then he honest to God _winks_ at Clint.

Clint’s going to pass out—probably because all the blood that’s supposed to be in his brain has rushed… well, _south_.

“Uh. Yeah. Yep.” Clint tries to find words. “Guess I better keep you alive, then. Can’t pass up free coffee.”

Bucky chuckles, the sound warm and deep.

Clint’s so fucked.

[ ](http://imgbox.com/wR1vEh3g)

Hill takes one look at Clint and sighs. “What _now_?”

“Barnes needs someone to stay with him so he doesn’t get murdered in his sleep.”

“Okay,” she says, but it’s prompting, almost a question.

“He may have asked me to do it.”

Her eyes narrow. “If you slept with him, you’re suspended.”

“I didn’t!” Clint yelps. “I wouldn’t do that.” She raises an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t do that until the case was over,” he insists.

She sighs. “I know, I know. Fine. But I’m assigning Carol to the case now, to help you out. You stick with Barnes, and she’ll pick up investigating other leads.”

Clint sighs. Carol is the best at what they do, if a little brash and confrontational. Her close rate is even higher than Clint’s—which is not a minor feat.

“Okay,” he agrees, because in the end, he really doesn’t want Bucky to die. He wouldn’t want anyone to die, but also, if Bucky doesn’t die, Clint _might_ just get to date him. “I’ll go send everything over to her.”

He spends the next few hours helping Carol settle in to the case, which she’s juggling with a couple other, smaller cases, and by the time eight o’clock rolls around, he’s tired and grumpy because he’s going to be awake all night.

He finds a coffee shop a few blocks away from the radio station—which he _drove_ to this time, because if he’s going to have Bucky with him, there’s no need to test fate—and doesn’t realize what he’s done until _after_ he’s bought a coffee for Bucky, too.

Oh well. He’s being friendly. It’s fine.

When he gets to the building, there’s a kid with headphones on at the desk, tapping his pencil on a textbook while he bobs his head. He doesn’t notice Clint until he’s standing right in front of him, and Clint’s a little concerned that whoever wants to murder Bucky might have just snuck right past this kid and murdered him here.

“I’m here to see James Barnes,” Clint says, showing the kid his badge.

The kid blinks. Then after a moment, he says, “Oh, yeah, Bucky said you’d be coming. Head on up. You know where you’re going?”

“Yeah,” Clint tells him. “And, like, maybe keep your eyes peeled? Take the headphones off?”

The kid rolls his eyes, but he complies, taking off the headphones. “Yeah, okay.”

Geez, it’s like he _wants_ to die.

Clint realizes belatedly that he actually _doesn’t_ know where he’s going, but he decides after a second that it’s probably a good idea to stop by the managers’ office anyway and update someone on the situation.

He comes face to face with an exhausted-looking Peggy Carter. “Hello, Detective,” she greets when he knocks on the frame of the open door. “How are you this evening?”

“As exhausted as you, probably,” he says before his faulty brain-filter can catch the words. He winces. “That sounded so much worse out loud.”

She chuckles softly. “I’ll give you a pass, just this once, because I heard you had to deal with my husband today.”

“Your husband?”

“Steve.”

“Oh, big and blond is your husband? Good for him.”

She smiles. “I’ll tell him you said so.”

Clint scrubs a hand over his face, trying to wipe away the tiredness. “I’m sorry, I’m really making an ass of myself, aren’t I?”

She shrugs a delicate shoulder. “It’s charming, in a train wreck kind of way.”

He nods. “I deserve that.” He sighs. “I’m gonna be tailing Bucky to keep him safe from would-be murderers. Is it okay if I sit in on his show? I won’t say a word.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Bucky, huh?”

Clint closes his eyes and prays for the earth to swallow him whole. When it doesn’t, he opens them again, and he sighs. “Yep.”

She smirks. “Well, okay then. He’s all yours, Detective.”

Clint wants to bury his face in his hands for the next eternity so he doesn’t have to see her face. He settles for blushing. “That’s hardly—”

“Show starts in half an hour,” she points out. “You might want to head up. It’s the next floor up on the left.”

Clint takes the out. She can have the last word; he just wants to escape with some small shreds of his dignity. It might not be intact, but at least it’s still in his possession.

He’s so glad he and Natasha no longer partner on cases, now that she’s Sergeant at a different precinct (not to mention dating Hill), because if she met Peggy Carter? _That_ would be the end of the world.

Bucky’s in a room with more dials and buttons than Clint knows what to do with, not to mention monitors and microphones and actual computers, the big and bulky and stationary kind. Clint knocks on the door and Bucky’s head jerks up.

He’s wearing a floral-patterned shirt, black with daisies, and he looks… hot.

Clint’s just kind of belatedly realizing he doesn’t have any clothes to change into later and resigning himself to the sweet release of death, because surely whatever deity rules the universe won’t want to keep torturing him like this?

Bucky opens the door with a smile. “Hey. Come on in.”

Clint enters and continues sweeping his eyes across everything. But, first things first, he nods at the door. “Keycard access?”

“Got it in one,” Bucky agrees.

“Okay. Anyone else supposed to be going in and out?”

“No, but I do have someone sending callers through to me. They’re in a different room, though.”

Clint nods. “This a pretty cool set up.”

Bucky lights up. “It is, right?” He’s off, then, explaining what everything does. The words mean next to nothing to Clint, but he enjoys watching Bucky be excited about it. “Sorry,” Bucky says eventually, a small blush staining his cheeks. “I get enthusiastic about my job.”

“That’s a good thing,” Clint assures him. “I can get pretty fixated on mine.”

“Sure,” Bucky agrees, “but that’s hardly a bad thing, right? You’re working toward the greater good.”

Pretty much no one in Clint’s life has ever approved of his hyperfocus on work, not even Natasha or Hill. “I guess,” he replies, rather than getting into it. “Uh, is there somewhere I should sit?”

Bucky moves back over to the chair he’d been sitting in, and he drags over one for Clint. “You can sit pretty much anywhere, but I put it here just in case you want to use the headphones to listen to the show.”

“Oh, cool,” Clint says. He shouldn’t; they’d distract him and they might mess with his hearing aids, but… “Can I control the volume? Keep it low?” He gestures at the aids in his ears.

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Bucky tells him. He points to a knob and says, “This controls volume for the spare pair of headphones.”

Clint settles in to the chair, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. Bucky settles back in to doing whatever it is that he needs to do for the show—a lot of work on a computer program that Clint doesn’t understand and doesn’t bother trying to, amongst other things.

He warns Clint before they go live, and Clint’s obediently quiet while he watches Bucky talk. It’s no hardship, really; he’s enraptured by the way Bucky’s demeanor shifts, the confidence he exudes when he’s speaking into the microphone.

Clint misses at least the first half hour of the show, just distracted watching Bucky.

It’s just, well, Clint’s kind of got a competence kink. So sue him.

Actually listening to the show does nothing to dissuade Clint’s attraction; Bucky’s great at handling everyone who calls in, from distraught people who think their partners are cheating on them to people who have been recently broken up with. He’s good with the people calling in with happy stories, too; engagements and weddings and relationship milestones.

It’s not necessarily the kind of radio show Clint would listen to unprompted.

That said, he would absolutely listen to it just to listen to Bucky’s voice.

He barely notices the hours passing. When Bucky says it’s the last song and bids everyone listening goodnight, Clint’s genuinely surprised.

Bucky switches off the mic and takes off his headphones, turning to Clint with a grin. “So, what did you think?”

“That was pretty cool,” Clint admits. “Thanks for letting me sit in.”

He follows Bucky around as he gathers his things to leave. They don’t say much; Bucky’s probably all talked out, and Clint’s settling in to the knowledge that he’s going to be awake for _hours_ yet.

As they’re on their way down to the lobby, Clint jugging the bag he’s got with Lucky’s things that he snagged from the precinct as well as Lucky’s leash while going down _stairs_, because apparently Bucky likes to take the stairs when he can.

“I can take his leash,” Bucky offers.

Clint shouldn’t say yes, but he’s struggling, so he says, “Yeah, thanks,” and hands it over.

It takes him a flight and a half of stairs to process what he’s done, the amount of trust he’s putting in Bucky. It only seems fair, though, considering the amount of trust Bucky’s putting in Clint.

[ ](http://imgbox.com/wR1vEh3g)

By the time they get back to Bucky’s apartment building, it’s more early morning than late night. “Lucky and I will go in first, check the place,” Clint tells Bucky.

“Okay,” Bucky agrees. He looks so tired that a breeze could knock him over.

“Also, do you have a coffee maker? If I’m gonna be staying up all night.”

Bucky’s eyes snap back to the present. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Kinda do,” Clint points out. “Like, generally, but also ‘cause I can’t sleep in these,” and he gestures at his hearing aids, “and I’m not much good keeping watch if I can’t hear.”

Bucky frowns. “Oh.”

Clint shrugs. “It’s fine. So long as you’ve got coffee. Otherwise we’re going out and getting me a metric shit-ton from a twenty-four-hour gas station or something.”

“No, I—I mean, yeah, I’ve got a coffee pot,” Bucky says.

“Good.”

Clint and Lucky check over Bucky’s apartment, but there’s no one lying in wait. Bucky leaves his things by the door, but instead of moving toward his bedroom, he goes to the kitchen and starts a pot of coffee. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

“Nah,” Clint says, pulling one of Lucky’s bowls out of his bag of stuff and filling it with water. “Is it okay if Lucky ends up on the furniture, though?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Then we’re good. Go sleep. We’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Bucky agrees, looking hesitant. But he turns and heads off to the bedroom, shutting the door softly behind him.

Clint settles in on the couch with his phone plugged in and charging, going on a Wikipedia deep-dive to make the hours pass. He starts with sharks and has made it to nebulae when he hears a noise. He glances down at Lucky, and he’s awake now, ears perked up.

His hearing aids aren’t the most delicate, but he’s pretty sure it’s someone trying to pick the lock. He gives Lucky the _stay down_ command and grabs his gun off the side table, safety on but gun aimed at the door.

Sure enough, the door swings open, and someone in a stupid dollar store mask and a baseball cap slips through it. They freeze when they register Clint, and turn to run, but the door’s already shut behind them.

Clint doesn’t see a gun, so he just vaults over the back of the couch and tackles the person to the ground before they can get the door open to escape. They hit the ground with a thud, and fuck - if Bucky wasn’t awake before, he sure as hell is now.

The person draws a knife from a holster under their shirt, and, _fuck_. Clint tries to knock it away, but it slices across his bicep. It stings more than anything, and he manages to knock it aside. He pins their wrists to the floor and settles his weight onto their thighs, firmly pinning them to the ground.

“Stay down,” Clint growls.

The figure struggles underneath him, but Clint’s pretty sure he has the upper hand now. But…

“Buck?”

“Yeah?” Bucky’s voice comes from right behind him, because of course he’d have no self-preservation instincts.

“Can you grab the cuffs out of my stuff?”

Bucky retrieves them, dangling them in front of Clint. Clint considers, and then he manhandles the person onto their stomach, arms crossed behind their back. Clint cuffs them efficiently, and then stands up.

He leaves the figure there, because he’s not too concerned about them at the moment. “Are you okay?” he asks Bucky.

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “You’re the one that’s bleeding.”

Clint glances down at his arm, and aw, he liked this shirt. Still, he shrugs. “It probably doesn’t even need stitches.” He glances down at the figure. “I’m gonna radio the detail outside, have them call this in.”

“I’m gonna… change,” Bucky says after a moment, and Clint realizes he’s just in worn sleep pants, and _oh, wow_, he _must_ have been distracted if he didn’t notice Bucky’s bare chest.

Still, he nods. He doesn’t want to make it weird. Bucky had flirted, but Clint’s not going to hold him to it, now that this is hopefully over.

Clint pulls the guy up and uncovers his face. “Want to explain yourself?” The guy glares at him and says nothing. Clint shrugs. “Okay then.”

The detail come to the door around the same time Bucky emerges from the bedroom, just in sweatpants and a threadbare t-shirt, and Bucky says, “Trevor?” The guy’s glare intensifies. “What the hell!”

“I take it you know him?” Clint asks.

“He works at the station.”

Clint nods. “Okay. Explains some of the motive, then, or at least the opportunity. We’ll see if his prints match any of the ones we pulled from the threat letters, get a warrant, do all of that.”

“Am I safe now?”

Clint nods. “You should be, unless he has any accomplices. Do you… want me to stay with you?”

Bucky shakes his head. “Leave someone else? It’s your case, you should get to finish it.”

Clint feels warm at the consideration. Aw, feelings, no. “Okay,” he agrees. “I’ll see you around?”

“One sec,” Bucky says, and he moves into the kitchen. He goes through a couple of drawers and comes back with a sticky note, ten digits on it. “Text me when this is all over?”

“Could be a while,” Clint warns, hope warring with practicality. “If this goes to trial, we shouldn’t…”

Bucky shrugs. “I got nothin’ but time.”

Clint feels himself grin, big and bright. “Okay. Yeah. You can get me that coffee you owe me.”

“Darlin’,” Bucky says, “I’ll get you all the coffee in the world.”

[ ](http://imgbox.com/wR1vEh3g)

Life goes on for the next few months, and Clint anxiously awaits the trial for Trevor Owenson, one of the radio assistants who apparently thought he would get promoted if he just kept killing off the hosts of the popular shows.

The day of Trevor’s trial comes, and passes, and Trevor goes to jail for murder and attempted murder, amongst other things.

Clint looks at the number saved in his phone, anxious. He’s seen Bucky a few times, and they’ve always flirted but left things relatively innocent. But—what if things have changed? What if—

A smack to the back of Clint’s head has him looking up, a complaint on his lips. When he sees that it’s just Nat, though, he relaxes. “What now?”

“You’re being dumb. Maria called me.”

Oh, shit. He must be pathetic if Hill’s noticed. “I’m just scared.”

“I know.” Nat takes his face in her hands, eyes meeting his. “Call him.”

Clint exhales shakily, but nods. “Okay.” Nat lets him go, and Clint hits the call button before he can chicken out and Nat has to rely on force rather than a pep talk.

“Hi,” Bucky says when he answers.

“Hi, it’s, um, Clint?” Clint says. “Uh, Clint Barton.”

“Oh!” Bucky sounds happy. That’s—good? That’s good. “I owe you coffee.”

“I mean, only if you want.”

“Clint?”

“Yeah?”

“Meet me at the coffee shop by my place in an hour.”

Clint blinks. Glances at Nat, who must know without being able to hear, because she gives him a thumbs up. Takes a deep breath. Is he going to do this? Take a chance on a relationship, knowing what a train wreck he can be?

Who is he kidding? Of course he is. If this is a bad decision, it’ll be the best bad decision he’s ever made. “Yeah, alright,” he agrees. “See you then.”

*********************

The End

*********************


End file.
